interviews in which mcvai revealed much more. we're going to wrap up our live coverage for now. i'm chris jansing. i thank you for watching, but i invite you to stay tuned and listen as rachel maddow tells the fascinating story and nbc films presents "the mcvai tapes:confessions of an american terrorist." we've got a lot here. >> six years before 9/11 in the worst act of terrorism the united states had ever experienced, a truck bomb explodes in oklahoma city. 168 people died. over 700 people are injured. the man who did it, a former u.s. army sergeant, timothy mcvai, never confessed his crimes to the fbi, to the courts, or to the media, but he did give a series of interviews detailing what he did and why to

two newspaper reporters. interviews that have never been heard publicly until now. >> death and loss are an integral part of life everywhere. these people in oklahoma who lost loved ones, i'm sorry, but you know what, you have to accept it and move on. >> mcvai's voice will lay out his version of developments using new facial replacement technology, we transform recreation shot with actors into visuals that graphically place mcvai into the very scenes he describes. drawing from 45 hours of exclusive audiotapes, we'll go deeper than ever thought possible into the mindset of this calculating killer. >> this is one kid who got it in his head that he could play god. >> when mcvai talks about the actual bombing, he's not almost bragging. he's boasting completely.

>> first of all, i believe there is no hell, but if i go further and say even if there is, i don't think i'm going. >> can you imagine like if lee harvey oswald had the chance to spill his guts or john wilkes booth? i knew i had one of the most saddest and horrible stories that has ever been told in american journalism. >> i never had trouble admitting to my involvement in what i did because i feel no shame for it. you see, with these tapes, i feel very free in talking. you've got this adrenaline pumping, but you force yourself to stay calm. i then pulled up to the light which was red at the time and lit the main fuse, which was approximately two minutes.

you can see the ridiculous nature of something called me a coward with 5700 pound. i swear to god that was the longest i ever sat in my life. i thought, okay, it's lit. green, green, what, a minute 30? i pulled up to the building, pulled the parking brake, turned it off, and then i made sure my door was locked and stepped out and walked across the street. the mission was accomplished, i knew it was accomplished, and then it was over. >> without warping, you know, all of a sudden you hear this kaboom. it's just seconds that you just don't know what's happened.

>> i was hollering help, and there was six floors but we didn't know it. people were everywhere. babies were crying and everything. where are you, we'll get you. where are you. >> i just remember the ceiling falling in, the windows, shattering glass everywhere, and it being smoksmoky. >> this is our office. we don't know the children. >> i saw mothers running down the street screaming because they couldn't find their kids. i was trying to get in the building, and this policeman yelled at me, and i said, but you don't understand, my little boy's in there, i've got go in there and get them. >> hell's breaking loose, you know, because nobody knows what's going on. you walk down the street and people are running and yelling and it seems like everybody's bleating. . >> the blast destroys one third of the alfred p. murray building

creating a 30-feet-wide crater and the equivalent of a 3.0 earthquake. overall 314 building in a 16-block radius are damaged or destroyed. >> i thought first maybe we had a natural gas explosion, but if it wasn't that, maybe we had an earthquake. and if it wasn't an earthquake, maybe a plane hit the building. >> but investigators quickly determined the cause of the massive destruction. >> the fbi, we're told now, has confirmed that it was a bomb that caused this explosion. >> this is one of the critical. >> millions around the world watch and wrestled with the mystery of why such a quiet city could be the target of a terrorist attack. >> it's a pretty all-american average city so you think why here. why on earth would somebody do something so vicious in the middle of the heartland? >> as soon as we get an ambulance here, we're going to

have you in the air, all right? >> immediately after the bomb went off, there were commentators all over this country saying, you know, it's the muslims, it's the foreigners. >> some group calling it the nation of islam saying it was responsible. that has not been confirmed. but it does look like it could have been the device that we saw outside the american embassy in beirut. >> while rumors and speculation about who was responsible swirled among the media, fbi agents are fortunate to catch a solid lead early on day one. >> within three hours of the bombing itself, the rear axle to the bomb-laden truck was found. that rear axle had a confidential vehicle identification number was identified. we were able to identify a individual timothy mcvai was probably one of the primary subjects and the investigation started there.

>> back inside the birthplace of timothy mcvai, new york, he was already looking to work a hometown angle to get to the heart of who this guy rlg was. >> i made it my job to find out who he was. it's not every day that an american terrorist comes from your backyard. >> by the wonder of 1999, four years after the bombing, timothy mcvai had been tried, convict and sentenced to death. the looming execution sparked a mad sprint from media agencies around the world to try to get an exclusive interview. >> in 1999 he sent me a letter saying, lou, i've considered a lot of print journalists wanting to tell my story and i'd like you to do it. >> the only autobiography of timothy mcvai. the 45 hours of tapes from jailhouse interviews had been

boxed up and collecting dust until now. >> nobody has ever heard mcveigh in his own words speak about the bombing. >> well, here is a blueprint, an oral blueprint of what turned one young man into one of the worst mass murderers and terrorists in american history. >> a shrink would conclude, i'm not sure if they would use psychopath or sociopath, that they have no respect for human life. far from it. i have a great respect but i recognize the nature of a human being and humans kill. ose prego.

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been convicted and sentenced to death for the oklahoma city bombing. >> i'm not going go into that

courtroom and curl into a fetal ball and cried just because the victims want me to. i've already accepted my death. with that, you can have what you want. i'll go to my death. you can be happy. i'll be happy. >> mcveigh was done with life. this was his ultimate statement. i knew that i was there to get a confession from him. >> up to this point, mcveigh had said nothing publicly about his involvement in the bombing but with a death expense approaching mcveigh trusts lou ma shell and trusts him. he begins by describing what chose him to choose the mora building as his target. >> the building was chosen in the phonebook in looking at the yellow pages. if you look under dea, u.s. marshal, if they start getting the same address, you know they're all in one building.

>> i think what most people probably do not realize is how carefully some of the details were planned out and for how long he had been thinking about carrying this off. >> mcveigh's plan requires the acquisition of thousands of pounds of materials, all needing to be stored without detection. a job this big is too big for one person, so mcveigh calls on one of his only friends, ex-army buddy terry nicholls. >> terry nicholls certainly believed the federal government was against the average person. he considered himself to be a prisoner in a country that wasn't his. beginning in september of '94 is really when they started to gather the ingredients. >> both of them were buying the material for the bomb and collecting. it was like a long-term project

for them because this is a 7,000-pound bomb they're building. >> they're going and making large purchases of ammonium nitrate in these 50-pound bags, you know, this granular fertilizer. they go around. they've got various storage sites where they're storing this stuff and getting ready to pull it all together. >> mcveigh had nicholls totally under his control. from the beginning the plan was mcveigh's. nicholls was the ultimate player. >> i take full spomt for all my actions and for who i am. i'm not looking in any way, shape, or form to blame on my parents or my upbringing. >> tim was born into a working-class family just north of buffalo, new york.

>> the family he was born into was very typical american. timothy mcveigh was the first son in that family. he'd had an older sister and then later a younger sister came along. >> growing up to me, i was taught by my family that even getting a speeding ticket was a sin-type thing. it wasn't a religious thing. i mean any breaking of the law is bad, tim. you should never break the law. >> after graduating from high school, mcveigh attends a local business college but gives it up after only one year. he is restless and looking for focus. >> he wanted excitement. he comes home. he tells his father, i'm joining the army, dad. his father says, when? well, i go in tomorrow. and bill said okay. >> in the spring of 1988 mcveigh chops off his hair and is ship dound to ft. benning, georgia,

for basic training. from there he's assigned a post at ft. riley, kansas. immediately mcveigh takes to the discipline and regimenation of military life. >> i wanted to get out and experience the rest of the world. i wanted to get out of my isolation of penalty. i wanted to be part of a team. i was a bit of a gun enthusiast, and so you can't go wrong both in brushing up your skills and getting the army's free ammunition. the army for me were some of the best years of my life. >> i think mcveigh found success for the first time in his life in the army. i think mcveigh was looking for some kind of family that would make him happy. >> there's a military background i come from. i want to be clear that the military didn't brainwash me into thinking this way. the truth is the military helped

introduce me to the cruelty of the real world and the way things work. >> in nosh of 1999 in response to saddam hussein's invasion of kuwait, timothy mcveigh and his army were shipped out. >> the gulf war for tim was sort of the culmination of his young military career. the way that that mission was described to him, the mission of the u.s. was noble. >> during the gulf war, battles on the ground are rare, but for mcveigh and his platoon, one bloody encounter stands out from the rest. >> they looked into his path finder inside the turret of the bradley fighting vehicle and saw way out in the distance a group of iraqi soldiers. >> i put the cross hairs up

there, pulled off my shot, and the next thing i saw was everything from above his shoulders disappear in red dust. it was like a red mist and the guy next to him dropped. i did kill him in self-defense. it was a single shot and i got two guys. >> that moment for tim was a moment of pride. he did what he was trained to do, did it very effectively. >> i think tim's time at war, as short as it is, did teach him to kill. but then you start to see these people who are starving and suffering the effects of war and beginning to realize that the government is evil because it can go kill these innocent people. >> my overall experience in the gulf war taught me that these people were just that, they were people. they were human beings that even though they speak a different language, at the core they're no different than me, right? then i had to reconcile with that the fact that, well, i killed them. >> he couldn't believe that his

government would be doing that and would be misleading people like him to do this. >> then after a failed tryout for the green berets, mcveigh quits the military, citing his mixed feelings about the government. >> in the gulf i realized i didn't like it. it just rubbed the wrong way. that's one of the reasons that i got out of the military. >> upon returning home after almost four years in the army, mcveigh discovers civilian life is not as liberating as he had hoped. >> i was so excited to get out of the military and go home and when i got home, there was no excitement there. once you've had that adrenaline rush, once someone's walked on the razor's edge, everything is dulled by comparison. some people get addicted to it. >> when tim came home, he really seemed changed.

he just really didn't at that point want to talk about his army experiences at all. it was like he just washed his hand of the whole thing. as your life changes, fidelity is there for your personal economy, helping you readjust along the way, refocus as careers change and kids head off to college, and revisit your investments as retirement gets closer. wherever you are today,

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in january 1993, timothy mcveigh is frustrated by the dead-end existence he has been enduring since leaving the army and he is still shaken by his experiences in the gulf war. eager to figure out his mission in life, mcveigh packs up his car and says good-bye to his quiet hometown of pendleton, new york. >> i lasted at home for one year and one month. this whole neighborhood, this ain't for me. i don't have a place here, i haven't fallen in love, and then i hit the road. >> the odyssey that he was living in the early '90s was really bizarre. he thought nothing of getting in his car and driving hundreds or even thousands of miles, and he was searching for something.

>> as a guy who i think had a lot of trouble relating to other people, that was a world that was very amenable to him. >> he was gathering inspiration during the early 1990s these expos become gathering places for the fast growing militia and patriot movement. it is in this sub culture that mcveigh finally finds an outlet for his growing rage. >> i mean, you could find an amazing amount of literature on insurgency, on forming militias, on building weapons. they're amazingly antigovernment. >> one of my favorite bumper stickers, you've heard the one that says "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns, well, there's a none one,

when guns are outlawed, i will become an outlaw, and it was at that point when i was fully intent on my life that i was going to live outside the law. >> he started to believe that our government was going to come into people's homes and take their guns away, and this scared the hell out of tim mcvai. >> on february 28th, 1993, outside the central texas town of waco, many in the patriot movement believed the spark to that next war is ignited. >> you can't point guns in the direction of my wives and kids. damn it, i'll meet you at the door anytime. >> in an effort to take david koresh into custody, federal agents raid his compound, and a massive fire fight breaks out. >> six davidians and four atf agents were killed, and that started the 51-day standoff.

>> it was a clash between federal law enforcement mite and withdrawn people who were fiercely protective of their community. >> you feel a bond with this community. the bond is they're fellow gun owners and believe in gun rights and their fellow survivalists and freedom lovers. when do you draw the line and say enough is enough? somebody has to send a message to say, you can't go any further. >> and mcveigh got in his little junk car and drove to waco, texas, to find out what was going on. >> michelle roush, a college newspaper reporter at the time, was at the branch davidian compound outside waco to investigate the story. it wasn't until one year after the oklahoma city bombing that she realized the man she interviewed on the hood of his car was none other than timothy

mcveigh. >> he was very unassuming. he was very literally very casual sitting on the hood of his car, very articulate. tim said, people need to watch what's happening and heed any warning signs. at the time, i thought, well, what does that mean? well, when i went back and read that in my article, it gave me chills. i thought, did that mean oklahoma city? was he foreshadowing? >> after camping in his car outside the branch davidian compound for a few days, mcveigh drives to terry nichols' farm in northern michigan. >> in less than an hour, the compound that had fascinated the world for 51 days was a raging inferno. >> on april 19th, 1993, mcveigh and nichols watched the violent end of the waco siege on television. >> watching flames lick out windows, and i'm watching tanks ram walls, and my eyes just welled up in tears, and tears

started coming down my cheeks, and i'm watching this scene unfold, just stood there in stunned silence. what is this? what has america become? i just remember that scene. it burned into my memory. i'm emotional right now as i talk about it. you know, i felt absolute rage. >> tim saw this as an act of war against the people. >> the rules of engagement if not written down are defined by the acts of the aggressor. now, what rules of engagement would you interpret in examining waco? kids are fair game? women are fair game? >> i think that that was the final moment for mcveigh, and he says so himself, right? after waco, now is the time for action, right? now we're going operational. many people are struggling with issues related to mental health.

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i'm melissa ray berg ger. here's what's happening. five people have died in an avalanche. it happened at loveland pass. that's a popular ski resort area. a group says a group ski-boarders triggered the avalanche. one survived. they have not yet questioned dzhokhar tsarnaev about the bombing he allegedly carried out with his older brother. now back to "the mcveigh tapes." it's the 18th of april, 1995, just 24 hours before the tragedy in oklahoma city, and mcveigh is in possession of the rented 20-foot ryder truck.

the horrific plan is in motion, but co-conspirator terry nichols is trying to back out, yet again. >> he told mcveigh, i'm out, i don't want to be involved with this. mcveigh got him on the phone and yelled and screamed at him and told him, you're in this, you're going to help me put this bomb together. >> but mcveigh brow beat nicholls into seeing the plan out. >> mcveigh is in charge. mcveigh becomes the alpha male in this small conspiracy to get even with the federal government. they then part ways with mcnicholls going home to his family. >> for the most part i was at

peace. i could feel the ground tremble beneath me. sitting on top of the bombs was no big deal. >> the weather along the kansas slk oklahoma border is crisp and clear when the sun rises on the morning of april 19th, 1995. 100 miles north of oklahoma city timothy mcveigh wakes at dawn after sleeping soundly on the side of the highway in the cab of his rented ryder truck. now loaded with 7,000 pounds of explosives, ready to ignite. >> he had initially intended to bomb the building at about 11:00 in the morning, but he finally decides at the very last minute, despite all his talk about how he had every detail of the plan worked out in advance, he decides he has to go right away, there's too much of a chance of being caught, so he actually leaves at about 7:00 in the

morning. >> mcveigh getting off the highway a few minutes before 9:00 a.m. upon entering downtown, there are moments when he isn't sure if he will be able to complete his mission. >> you've got this adrenaline pumping, but you force yourself to stay calm and not be noticed. then pulled up to the light, which was red at the time. i did the two-minute fuse at the stoplight. i swear to god, it was the longest stoplight i ever sat in in my life. i'm thinking, okay, it's lit, green, green. >> there's this kind of amazing moment as the fuses are burning in the back of the cab of the truck into the rear. mcveigh is kind of tapping his fingers at a red lite, counting down the last few minutes. >> he has his windows rolled down just as he's approaching the light because he didn't

anticipate that smoke would fill the cab. >> i'm thinking oh [ muted ] i'm thinking i rolled the window down, adjusting to turn down the fan, and by the time i pull up, it's going to look funny. i was rolling the windows back up as i pulled in. i didn't want to do it after i stop. we're talking seconds, right? >> he pulls up the truck, locks the doors, and strides across the street. >> i walked very slowly to avoid suspicion. you have to be very calm and controlled. it's part of the control. walked across the street, and walked square toward the ymca. once i got in a blind alley of the ymca where nobody could look, i did jog because i knew nobody was looking. just for my own personal pride, i made sure you use the word

"jog" there because i wasn't running in a panic. it was a conscious decision to jog. >> it's very specific on that, that he did not start running, it was just a gentle trot, because in his words, i'm a professional and i'm not afraid. but he is waiting, when is this bomb going to go off. >> so he started thinking to himself, am i going to have to go back there and shoot the bomb to ignite it? and just as he was thinking of that, the bomb blew up. >> the blast went off, and i felt the concussion in both the air and in my feet. >> it goes off and just rattles all the buildings around him. he never goes back to look at all his handiwork. >> i heard it clearly through my earphones and literally was lifted off the ground. i didn't feel the skin contorting, but you felt the pressure in the air, there's no doubt about that.

you feel like an overpressure, like a poof. >> it was like an earthquake, only very loud. he says he just kept walking toward his getaway car, which was parked a couple of blocks away. >> i'm walking quickly. everyone else is coming out of their stores, and i'm walking the other way. i know this may sound like i'm cold and detached, but remember, this is military training. i was never hyped up. i was always in complete control. the mission is accomplished, i knew it was accomplished, and it was over. >> i think that when mcveigh talks about the actual bombing, the carrying out of the last few minutes of the bomb, he's not almost bragging, he's boasting, completely, you know. it's all about i'm the consummate technician and his

whole concern is to show he was always icy cool, calm, and collected, but, you know, what the guy is talking about is mass murder on an incredible scale, including the murder of children. i felt this was very much a guy who has no connection to any kind of emotions really at all. >> mcveigh makes it to his getaway car. behind him lay the ruins of the worst terrorist attack the united states had ever seen. what lies ahead is one of the biggest american manhunts of all time.  copd makes it hard to breathe...

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north. the car he's driving had no license plates. mcveigh said that was a deliberate choice. >> since i dealt myself the wild card with leaving the license plate off because when you leave the license plate off, you can't be sure who pulls you're and when. every inch that my tire rolls on the unteinterstate, i thought, , what am i going do if this happens, what will i do if this happens. >> i can't believe he left the plate off. so much of his plan was meticulously thought out. it always perplexed me. >> just 75 minutes after the bombing, mcveigh is pulled to the side of the highway by oklahoma state trooper charlie hanger. up until this moment, mcveigh says his's convinced he was making a clean getaway. it turns out he almost did. >> hanger was a fluke because

he said at the exit he pulled me over at -- i was at spitting distance. he was going to get to that exit, go up on the overpass, turn around and head back. they were requesting assistance in oklahoma and he was going to head that day. within one mile more in that 20-mile-an-hour stretch, he wouldn't have seen me because i would have passed. >> mcveigh is handcuffed, taken to the nearest local lockup in the small town of perry, oklahoma. he's charged with misdemeanors of driving a vehicle without plates, and carrying a weapon without a permit. at booking, mcveigh is calm and unassuming. >> i talked to the people who booked him in. nice boy, not nervous, didn't show any inkling. this kid can mask what's going on inside of him very well. >> mcveigh is booked about two hours after the bombing and still doesn't know the degree of damage he has inflicted. but while waiting for a cell to

become available, he catches sight of the television showing images of the carnage. >> it was at the perry courthouse when they were booking me in, right? and i was watching the tv, and, of course, i'm absorbing it without pretending i'm not, pretending to be worried about being arrested. >> that's when he caught his first glimpse of the murrah building, and his first reaction was, damn, i didn't take the building completely down. >> mcway waits that first day to be identified, but nothing happens. meanwhile the hunt for the bomber is on.

>> while mcveigh's in prison in this little relative ocean of solitude, you know, just waiting for something to happen, the rest of the country is just uptight, in knots, wondering, is there going to be another attack. people are wondering, is this somebody from the middle east? who could do this? >> fbi agents comb the debris for clues to who could have been behind the bombing. they quickly locate a very revealing piece of evidence. >> it was within three hours of the bombing itself that the rear axle to the bomb-laden truck was located and found. that rear axle had a confidential vehicle identification number which led to the ryder truck and took us to kansas to start the investigation there as to who rented that vehicle. >> federal agents swarmed junction city, kansas, and talked to the owner of elliott's body shop where mcveigh rented

the ryder truck. they emerge with the description of a renter, robert cling, a tall white male with a military buzz cut. down the street at the dreamland hotel, the manager tells agents that the description resembles a man who had just stayed there day before, a guest registered under the name tim mcveigh. the question remains why would he use his real name? it's turning out mcveigh has left clues everywhere. >> you have to realize that inside that marquee was a big thick brown envelope with all kinds of anti-government literature espousing his viewpoints. and he's wearing a t-shirt that has a quote from john wilkes booth when he shot lincoln, "sic semper tyrannis."

tyrants forever. on the back there's a tree with the words of thomas jefferson that "the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots." >> i left the trail on purpose. just a few pieces in my car, i was wearing it on my back. even if i wouldn't have been apprehended, i still would have gained the benefit of being identified. i already made sure that was in place. it was a no lose situation. >> by the time federal agents identify mcveigh just two days after the bombing, he is being arraigned and about to be released from the noble county jail. just an hour or so from being set free, agents contact the sheriff to put a hold on mcveigh, to keep him in custody. they rush to perry to meet with their number one suspect, but despite his claiming that he wanted to be caught, mcveigh isn't talking.

>> the guy says, you better talk to us because you're facing the death penalty, and he pulls out pictures of dead babies, okay? he slides them toward me and says, you're familiar with the oklahoma bombing, right? some way to introduce the pictures and make me feel bad and start talking. well, it didn't work. i kept a straight face and said, i want an attorney. >> that same afternoon in harrington, kansas, after learning he had become a person of interest, terry nichols turns himself in. unlike mcveigh, nichols cooperates with authorities. he is not the unidentified accomplice they're looking for but he provides enough information to implicate mcveigh as the architect of the bombing plot. later in the day, back in perry, fbi agencies prepare to take mcveigh out of the noble county courthouse. it will be the first time the world gets a look at the oklahoma city bomber.

>> there were steps leading out of the courthouse and i had to concentrate where the steps were going to be without stepping down because people would take my head down as a sign of some. and in leg chains, if you ever try walking downstairs and stride is too long, you'll fall down. the chain catches on middle step. those are the things i was thinking of. >> i think the overall visceral reaction was that looks like the kid down the block. how could he have done what he did. [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus presents the cold truth.

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among the 168 killed and 700 injured in the attack, dozens are young children. paula matley's daughter jordan

was only three-and-a-half years old when the blast tore through her daycare classroom across the street from the murrah building. >> following the bombing, jordan had much difficulty sleeping. she had nightmares. she had extreme separation anxiety. she was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and underwent about a year of therapy for that where she would draw pictures and just relate her anger about the situation. >> and i remember thinking that the person who did that to so many families, that they should like have some repercussions for it. i mean, they shouldn't just get away with it. >> you know, she wanted him punished, the ultimate punishment for him. >> janie coverdale lost her two young grandsons that day.

they were beginning their morning on the murrah building second floor when the explosion took their lives. >> i remember the day they told us aaron and elijah were dead. i remember screaming at god. it took me a long time to get over some of that anger. so now i go visit aaron and elijah at the cemetery. sometimes i get angry then, too. they were little boys. and you just don't murder little kids. aaron would be 20 years old now. elijah would be 17. sometimes during the day you're going to cry or there's going to be something that's going to remind you of the bombing and you're right back where you were on april 19th, 1995. we don't ever get too far from there.

>> there were reports of up to 50,000 people in the oklahoma city area, suffering symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. i looked at all of the photographs from the crime scene. i looked at all of the photographs from the coroner's office. it was overwhelming. >> death and loss are an integral part of life everywhere, and accidents like plane crashes where you lose 100, 200 people, all of these examples i'll give you right now are unexpected losses. we have to accept it and move on. >> he was very are hostile to the victims, really almost detaching himself from their hurt all together. >> i had no hesitation to look right at them and listen to their story, but i'd like to say to them i heard your story many

times before, the specific details may be unique, but the truth is you're not the first mother to lose a kid, you're not the first grand parent to lose a granddaughter or grandson. i use the phrase and it sounds cold, but i am going to use it because it is the truth, get over it. >> more than two years after the oklahoma city bombing, a federal jury finds timothy mcveigh guilty on 11 counts of murder and conspiracy. on june 13th, 1997, mcveigh is sentenced to death. >> any realist in that situation, you pretty much know they're gonna get the death sentence, regardless what happens at trial. i had accepted that from the beginning. my entire attitude the whole time including now, every day, carpe diem, seize the day.

this earth holds nothing more for me, okay? i'm ready to move on. >> mcveigh was done with life. he wanted to be executed. he wanted to go down in flames and put it in the government's face that you're killing me for killing people. >> in the crudest terms, 168 to 1. if you have had it on a scoreboard, right? so i sit here today content that there's no way that they can beat me by executing me. >> early on the morning of june 11th, 2001, timothy mcveigh is brought to the death chamber. >> you asked what i would be feeling on whatever gurney. contentment and peace. peace is important word to put in there. i didn't want to leave it at just contentment. i'll be content and peaceful.